This invention is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/895,081, entitled "Method And Apparatus For Processing Printed Products", filed concurrently herewith.
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for opening folded printed products and depositing them on a saddle-type rest and more particularly to a method and apparatus for opening folded printed products and depositing them on saddle-type rests wherein the products are conveyed by individually controllable grippers of a conveying device.
An apparatus of this type is described, for example, in Swiss Patent Specification 667,859. In the disclosed arrangement, each of the printed products are held securely against rotation in the central region of the fold by a gripper of a conveying device. The printed products are also compressed by means of a pusher element which acts on an end region of the fold. An opening strip is introduced between the halves of the printed products starting from the compressed fold. The opening strip is moved along the relevant side edge of the printed products to the region of the open edge opposite the fold to separate the two halves from one another. In order to hold the printed products securely against rotation, the grippers have two clamping fingers which are each controllable independently of one another and a clamping jaw which interacts with both clamping fingers. In order to further open the printed products which have previously been opened by means of the pusher element and the opening strip, the clamping finger closer to the pusher is moved into its open position. The relevant printed product is then rotated about the clamping point between the other gripper and the clamping due to the effect of the pusher element. The rotation thus causes printed product to be positioned obliquely. One half of the printed product is then introduced into an opening cam of an opening device in the region of the corner of the printed product which is now leading due to the oblique positioning. The opening cams are rotationally or circularly driven around a wheel which is rotatable about an axle and which runs perpendicular to the conveying direction of the printed products. By deflecting the opening cam around the wheel, the half of the printed product held by the relevant opening cam is separated from the other half starting at the open edge. During this separation, a saddle-type rest of a drum-type collecting device is introduced from below between the two halves of the printed product. After the relevant opening cam has opened, the two halves of the printed product grip around the saddle-type rest from above. The relevant gripper of the conveying device is then opened causing the printed product to drop astride this rest. The opening device of this arrangement is thus located in the transfer region of the printed products to the rests and is actively involved in the transfer.
Similar devices, in which the printed products, however, are not placed obliquely for introduction into the opening cams of the opening device, are disclosed in EP-A-0,341,425 or the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,667, EP-A-0,208,081 or the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,117 or DE-A-3,620,945 or the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,116. The common factor in all of the devices disclosed in these references is that the opening devices are arranged in the transfer region of the printed products to the rests and, due to the opening of the printed products, are themselves actively involved in the depositing operation during the insertion of the rests between the opening printed products. When changing over to printed products of different formats, these known devices require considerable expenditure since all of the components involved in opening and depositing have to be coordinated with one another.
Therefore, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus of the type described above but wherein setting the printed products to be processed to other formats is greatly simplified.